K#3. A week in the life of a Tech Data Scientist
Goalie duty + big milestone celebration + blogging journey
Hey you 👋
Welcome to this #3 edition of K’s DataLadder ✨. Each week I share a story from my life as a Spotify data scientist to help you learn more about the job in tech!
A warm welcome to the incredible 50+ people who joined us this week! We're now 665 strong, and it’s thanks to readers like you so thank you so much 🫶
Today I want to give you a brief overview of what I’m up to this week at Spotify, which will serve as the basis of next week’s edition. I also want to celebrate a big milestone in my life as well as the story around it. I hope you enjoy it!
Lezzgo👇
This week’s agenda
A week of goalie duty
A big milestone in my life
How blogging changed my career
A week of goalie duty
This week I'm the "goalie" for our data science team.
This means I'm the go-to person for all ad-hoc requests, maintenance, and last-minute tasks.
It's a busy but crucial role that puts me at the heart of our projects' most urgent and critical needs. I also get a bird's eye view of everything happening in our studio* from a data perspective.
Side note* – Spotify is famous for its agile structure, basically our ways of operating. I’ll share more about it in the future because it’s really cool, but in the meantime just think of “studio” as a department!
As data scientists, we used to spend a big chunk of our time swamped with enquiries and handling data questions from other stakeholders that frankly, anyone with a good enough grasp of BigQuery could manage.
This was often the case, although not always because of course it also depends on the complexity of the data that needs to be pulled out.
And for a long time, this was the pure definition of existential dread for me. It required so much context-switching and I often found myself struggling to gain back my focus and be my productive.
Picture this - you're deep into a project, fully flowing in it, and then boom—a product manager or designer hits you with an urgent data request. What do you do?
The answer used to be complicated, but the new "goalie" system we've implemented has been a lifesaver for our team.
Since it's only Tuesday of my week on goalie duty, I'll dive deeper into this topic in next week's edition. I want to share some real-life examples once I have a complete picture of the week.
In the meantime, I want to celebrate with you a big milestone in my life. I never truly get to share what it’s like behind the scenes of writing content for you, and I figure this could be the perfect opportunity to do that.
Else, feel free to skip until next week!
A big milestone in my life
This week is particularly special because I’ve finally launched my YouTube channel!!
It’s a big deal for me because I spent months convincing myself to do this.
The thing is, I didn’t know where to start, what software to use, how to speak on camera, how to edit a video… I knew nothing! Plus, I have a long-standing fear of social media which didn’t help either.
However, two months ago, a friend introduced me to his cousin who’s a big star on YouTube (+4M subscribers) and he gave me that extra push I needed to ditch my fears and go for it.
And today, I’m proud and excited to share my very first YouTube video, the first in many more to come!
Tackling the Big Question: How to land a job at Spotify?
Choosing the topic for my first video was straightforward, I chose to tackle the #1 question I always get on LinkedIn: How to land a job at Spotify?
But then I realized the answer is much more complex than just sharing interview or resume tips. To truly help you, it's important to give you the full picture.
So I'm creating a three-part video series to give you a comprehensive guide on what it really takes to secure a spot at Spotify (pun intended), or any other leading tech company for that matter.
👇 Watch part 1 here & make sure to subscribe to not miss the next parts. In this one, I focus on the first step of my journey: getting my internship at Spotify.
In the future, I want to share more vividly what it’s like to work in a top tech company because so many of us have worked our asses off in the hope of someday making it in the big clubs.
Let’s face it, it’s like joining the Ivy League of the job world.
How blogging changed my career
But first, help me understand which format I should be focusing more on in the future!
Speaking of YouTube, I want to share the story of how I got into blogging last year, and how it completely changed my whole data science career. It has become a huge part of my “life as a data scientist”, so it makes sense to share the full picture.
It started with a friend’s New Year’s resolution
“This year, I want to stop consuming and start creating”, he said.
His words hit me hard because at that time, I’d been feeling guilty about binge-playing the Ezio trilogy of Assassin’s Creed for endless hours instead of doing something with my life.
At that moment, I realised the depth of my overconsumption. We’re all guilty of over-consuming, but what makes it worse, is when it’s reduced to solely that.
Fast forward – three months later, I got diagnosed with a chronic disease and almost lost my job in massive layoffs. I got depressed and I questioned my whole life goals when I realized I had none.
That’s when I decided to take things seriously and began this blogging journey. It was time to switch from just consuming to creating. I still finished the Ezio trilogy though, and now I’m heartbroken it’s over 🥺
Blogging has opened me to a whole new world of opportunities, from job offers to connecting with like-minded people and even becoming a comforting source of side income when I didn’t get promoted 🥲
There are no limits to creating, and anyone can tap into it!
It ended as the most transformative year of my life
Becoming a creator has changed me as a person. I used to (and still do) freak out whenever I post something on LinkedIn or YouTube. I used to be bullied at school for a long time, so it kind of traumatised me from people’s judging eyes.
However, creating really pushed me to step out of my comfort zone and because of that I grew like I never did before.
Now, I have deep respect for anyone brave enough to share their wisdom with the world. I never realised all the work that a 5-minute video that I would skim in a few seconds actually had behind.
If you haven’t done that already, you can:
Subscribe to my YouTube channel to support me!
Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, X, whatever works for you really!
Join the +4.7k supportive peeps on my Medium blog
Check out my latest data science piece on how I landed an internship at Spotify
See you next week for our goalie appointment 🤗 I’ll be expecting you!